


A Sweet Gall

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Friendship, Introspection, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13253847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: He had broken his promise. He had left her alone.





	A Sweet Gall

_[You and I, we’ve seen a lot_

_Lived a lot]_

When I first met Lily, I understood right away she was a witch.

I believed I was messing with an angel, because that’s how she had shown herself to me.

An angel able to look beyond any shy gaze of mine, beyond my silences, beyond the fact that everyone mocked me.

And when we’ve gone together to Hogwarts... I remember how lost she was in that world all new, made of things she had never heard before. The first night, after the Sorting, I saw her running away in tears. And I followed her, as any good friend would’ve done.

I watched her from afar. She was beautiful. She wasn’t tall, she had nothing in particular, but the totality of her hair the colour of extinguished fire, those eyes so green, so magnetic. And that smile she never denied to anybody. That’s what I saw.

I loved her. And I’ve made too many mistakes. She made me what I am today.

She cried a lot, that night. And, had I forgotten my pride, maybe I would’ve too. She was alone. After all the plans we’d made, after I had promised her I wouldn’t have abandoned her; in a way, she saw it like I had betrayed her.

 

_“Severus, why can’t I be in the same House as you?” she muttered among tears. I sighed._

_“Lily, it’s not my choice. The Sorting Hat has decided what’s best for us.” I told her, tired. She squinted._

_“Those Slytherins... I don’t like the look in their eyes. They seem evil.” she whispers. I overcame my reticence and hugged her._

_“It doesn’t matter that we’re in two different Houses. I’ll never leave you alone.”_

And in that moment I didn’t know how much I was lying.

 

_[And we’ve understood well_

_the word ‘together’]_

I had kept my promise. At least for the first year. He spent all the time he could with her, trying to never leave her alone, in that world that from weird had become charming to her eyes.

This until _he_ came. I had already noticed him, with his arrogant look and his going around with Black, of whom I knew the family name. Potter, instead, was a mystery. I classified as an ordinary braggart, who had laid his eyes on Lily.

It all started on the second year. Sitting at the Slytherin table, I noticed how he looked at her, how he tried every move, no matter how ridiculous, to have her look at him. In the beginning I didn’t mind all that much, thinking Lily too smart to be fooled by the likes of him. I was wrong.

 

_“You know, Potter is not half bad.” she told me one afternoon, while we were sitting in the shadow of a tree. It was October, the days were growing colder, but I could still feel a residue of summer heat that just didn’t want to leave._

_“Not half bad? Are you crazy, Lily? He’s just an idiot, nothing else.”_

_I realized I’d made the wrong move. She pouted for a few seconds, then gave me a forced smile._

_“Are you jealous, Severus?” she asked, smirking. I blushed, trying to keep my cool._

_“Of course I don’t feel inferior to the likes of him. I’m just trying to warn you, but you’re free to do as you please.” she laughed and hugged me._

_“You’re my best friend, Severus. And there’s no James Potter in the world that could change that.” she told me, softly._

I knew she truly believed it. But right then and there I couldn’t chase away the feeling that Lily Evans was slowly slipping from my fingers.

 

_[While the sun at our backs is slowly setting_

_And you wouldn’t want to be that sun]_

After all, we were just teen agers. What could have I asked of her? Potter has insisted so much that in the end he got her.

Of course, he had to fight. But right from the beginning I knew she would’ve given up, that she was resisting for me, in order not to destroy in the blink of an eye all the respect I had for her.

Little Lily has always been naïve, in her infinite sweetness. She saw the sadness in my eyes, but she could never catch the essence of it. Her insecurity made me almost smile, for I knew she showed it only to me. To the rest of the world she was strong, brave. She always said she didn’t want anybody to think she was weak.

Not even Potter.

 

_“Severus, I know you don’t like him but I can’t help it. He’s nice with me. At times.” I stare at her, cold._

_“Lily, I wouldn’t mind Potter one bit. It’s him that keep messing with me.” I see her lower her eyes, embarrassed._

_“I see how James and Sirius are with you. But I swear, I told them to stop and they just won’t listens.” she tries to defend herself._

_“I don’t need your protection, thanks.” I hiss in between my teeth, making her back off._

_“Severus, I...” she tries, but I stop her._

_“I’ve got to go. I’ve got my Charms class.” I say, turning and running away._

I realize that just now, but that escape was probably what marked our end.

 

_[It’s happened what had to, what could]_

And the end of the seventh year came. Lily and I had become almost strangers, and it was my fault. I was the one to back off, I didn’t want to have anything to do with those four she surrounded herself with. I know she suffered from it, and that she bore my silence stoically. Yet I knew I couldn’t ignore her forever out of nothing. She was sweet, but she mixed that sweetness with a decisiveness I’ve never seen like it before. It was logical she wanted to speak to me, before the train brought us back home and our destinies became completely separated. I tried to avoid the confrontation, I felt... stronger in the past years, and I knew that talking to her would have meant taking a step back into the abyss. Lily’s Severus was the awkward one, clumsy and friendless. But I couldn’t.

 

_“We need to talk.” she whispered to me one day in the hallways, pulling on my arm. She took me out of the school, than looked at me. She was flushed, and on her face I saw a disappointment capable of hurting me._

_“What do you want, Evans?” I asked, pretending to be bored. She raised an eyebrow._

_“Is it Evans now?” I turned, making as if to go away, but she followed me. “Severus, you had promised!” she screamed. I looked at her, disdainful._

_“We were just little kids. And anyway, I promised you I wouldn’t have left you alone, and it doesn’t seem you are. You’ve got them. What do you want from me?” her face saddened._

_“You’ve changed. And it’s not just about James, we both know that. It’s been since you’ve started to hang out with all those guys from your House that you haven’t been the same.”_

_I squint, furious._

_“Don’t you dare criticizing_ my _friends, Mudblood!” I screamed. Her look was eloquent. I felt like I slapped her; without saying a word she left, leaving me alone with my guilt._

I was the one to ruin all we had. She would’ve never been mine, and I knew it all too well. So I parted from her, but I never managed to avoid the resentment, which in time became a part of me.

_[How many crumbs left behind us_

_Either we toast to ourselves or we toast to whomever you want]_

So she had made new friends; and my deduction was that she didn’t need me anymore. I was foolishly proud, I admit it today. But back then, the hatred toward her union with Potter had taken roots inside me.

When I received an invitation to their wedding, I lost it; it had never happened to me, it didn’t happen anymore. Just that small piece of paper with her untidy writing on it was enough to poison my mind. I wasn’t going to attend, it was obvious, and that invitation made no sense at all. But there still was some residual magnetism attracting me to her, and I couldn’t ignore it. I went there, I watched that butchery taking place by a window, as the king of all cowards. She saw me. She came out, a glass in her hand.

 

_“You came.” she told me with a smile. Not even my disgusted look was able to destroy her happiness. She gave me the glass._

_“I couldn’t miss the day you would’ve officially ruined your life.” I ironized, sipping the liquor. She puffed, amused._

_“Oh come on, Severus! For just one night, can’t you set your feelings for James aside? Come inside!” she invited me. I shook my head, then raised my glass._

_“To you, Evans. To you and Potter.” I drank some more, then I put the glass back in her hands. “Farewell.” I murmured, leaving inside the darkness._

She didn’t even follow me. She knew as well that I was incompatible with the life she had chosen; but I’m sure I’ve heard a ‘farewell’ whispered into the night.

 

_[Love counts_

_Do you know any other way to mess with death?]_

When I entered Voldemort’s circle, perhaps I didn’t know what I was doing. I only knew I’d become passive to life, and that my choices were instinctive, illusory. He knew about Lily, and never failed to look at me spiteful anytime the Potters were mentioned. After all, he aimed much higher; he had never wasted his time with any form of love, he deemed it useless, harmful. He spoke to me about it one day, when I was ready for battle.

 

_“You do know the Potters have to die, don’t you?” he asked all of a sudden. I tried and managed to mask the horror at the idea of Lily’s death, and I nodded._

_“Yes, My Lord. The prophecy can’t come true.” I said, like a puppet._

_“Exactly, Severus.” he got closer, gazing into the recesses of my mind._

_“You still haven’t forgotten about the Mudblood.” it was a statement, not a question, so I waited. “You must think about power, Severus. About domination, subjugation. Love is for teenage girls.” he said, spiteful. And I felt something awakening in me._

_“You’re right, my Lord. Yet it’s true that love...” I stopped, unsure as to how to go on. “I love Lily Evans. It’s been the only anchor in my life.” he laughed, then patted my shoulder._

_“You’ll see, Severus, when she’ll be dead it won’t take you long to forge. After all, minds preserves actions better than thoughts.” he mocked me._

He was wrong. I never managed to forget her.

 

_[No one ever says whether sooner or later_

_And maybe some god isn’t done with us]_

The Dark Lord asked me to join him that night; I refused, and I strongly regretted it. I would’ve liked to see her one last time, see her face, reading death in her eyes. But perhaps it has been for good. Without seeing her, I would’ve been able to keep her smile for all eternity, and he wouldn’t have been able to take it away from me. That night, I understood what I was doing. And while she consumed her last breath, I breathed new air.

I was alive again, finally. I’ve got Dumbledore to thank for this, he who in his infinite trust in others had given me a future which wasn’t stained in blood. He would’ve helped me avenging that atrocity which I didn’t have the courage to avoid. And so, while she rested with her eyes forever closed, I kept living my hell, the glass prison I’ve built around myself, impenetrable by any other human being. I knew it wasn’t over, that I still had to suffer an anguish destined to never stop gripping my bowels. But every morning, during these years, her face has accompanied me, has given me some of the strength I had always pretended to own. I tried to avoid regrets, and I realized I had seen the right path too late. Before she died, not all was lost. But I didn’t know it, and I had kept undergoing the attacks of hatred which kept me apart from her. From my Lily.

 

_[It’s a shame about those promises_

_Honest, but heavy]_

Dumbledore during those years seemed a father more than an ally. He had entered aggressively in my life, convinced he could still save me. But I knew there was nothing left of me, just memories, which bound me to earthly life. He had tried often to talk to me, and I vented with him just in a moment of rage, of frustration.

 

_“Severus, I know how you felt about Lily, but keeping all this resentment inside won’t help you to move on.” he said, with that reasonable voice I so much hated._

_“I don’t want to move on, Headmaster. I want to be bound to the days where it was just her and I, to the days where Potter didn’t exists and Voldemort neither. When there were still colours, and my world hadn’t drowned in grey.” I said more to myself than to him. The wizard smile._

_“She’ll always live with you, you know that. And you also know she loved you.” I stood up from the chair in his office, flushed._

_“An affection I didn’t deserve. My relationship with Lily has always been based on broken promises, on compromises I couldn’t agree on. It’s my fault we’ve parted, it’s my fault she’s dead!”_

That was the only one time I talked about her with someone. For the rest of my life, I’ve kept inside of me the memory of her disappointed eyes, of her finding out I was gone, that I had ran away from her. And she was right. I had left her alone.

 

_[This journey where you don’t pass go again]_

In my life I’ve always had the sensation that it was too late. That it was too late to go back, to say things at a different moment.

And this feeling of discomfort has grown more and more, up to the moment of making me what I am today. I know she’d turn up her nose seeing me now, a mind of steel, a smile which hasn’t passed my face in years.

And she’s tell me that it would’ve been different, hadn’t I let her go. And, as usual, she’d be right; for she’s my Lily, she who always supported me, who always made me believe I could’ve been special for someone. And now, without her, I’m not worth anything even to myself. I can almost see her, smelling her tears flowing through my fingers. But she’s dead. And she won’t come back anymore, not for me.

_[Love counts_

_And it counts the years to who’s never been ready]_

The memory which would’ve tormented me the most during the years, was the one of that day when she told me about me, and unwittingly traced a portrait of what my life would’ve been from then on. At times I feel like laughing thinking about that little girl, who knew me so well, while I had understood nothing of her.

 

_“Severus, you’re a person made to love. But you’re ashamed of this natural predisposition of yours, and you hide beyond black clothes, you mask your eyes so to make them inexpressive, and flee from human contact. It can’t be like this forever. We won’t be kids much longer, we’ll change, we are going to have needs. And your solitude is going to weigh on your shoulders one day. When you’ll me anguished enough to ask for help, just make sure it’s not too late.”_

That was me. She looked at me and talked like she had read my life in a book. And then it was time to ask for help, and when I turned around she wasn’t there anymore holding out a hand for me.

She was right, I had ceased the momentum.

 

_[Thank you for the full time_

_Thank you for your truest self_

_Thank you for biting the bullet_

_The flaws_

_For the moments of cheer_

_For our fantasy]_

We hurt each other. We’ve lost each other, found again, hated, erased.

We’ve clung to our dreams and hopes, we’ve hung on a thread our friendship and then made it fall. But I know she was everything to me, and that for a while I’ve been everything for her. I knew I owe her those scarce smiles on my face, the fact that I had something to fight for. I know I would’ve never existed if she hadn’t been next to me, making me see I was in fact alive.

I know that, from somewhere, she’s still watching me and guiding me, still trying to make me do the right thing. At times, when the pain becomes unbearable, I almost think I can hear her voice whispering me to go on.

But she knows as well I can’t do it anymore.

 

_[Love counts_

_No matter how much you pull, you know the blanket’s short]_

I’ve kept living because I knew that’s what you wanted.

But I’m running out of time now. I’m dying, and because it’s right. I’ve avenged my love for you, he’s going to die, your son is going to be fine with his angel protecting him, an angel that unfortunately we have in common. I’ve given all, I’ve given despise in the eyes of the unawares, I’ve given my own life, and I’ve given my thoughts, in a last scream of love, only for you. I know I can’t hesitate anymore, my eyes are closing, life is slipping away from me.

I only hope that the fact that I kept living might have given me something real. And if there’s any justice in this world, now that I’m dying, that I’m paving my road to the beyond, you’ll be there waiting for me Lily, solitary light in hell.

I love you.

_[Love counts.]_


End file.
